Creationism's simplistic lies

Once again, I have to thank PZ for this link. Go check out this video of Dr. Ron Carlson on Worldview Tube. It would be funny as a parody of creationists like Ken Ham and Ron Comfort if it wasn't for the fact that this guy is serious.

His entire point isn't just wrong because he is ignorant of the truth and facts, it is wrong because he lies about the truth and facts. He is egregariously lying about the truth of science. He leaves out all the significant details which completely destroys his entire argument.

So what is his argument? It is that there is circular logic (solely) being employed in dating fossils and geologic strata. And that circular logic has its end in wrongfully substantiating evolution and the age of the earth. His argument is based on only one aspect, that fossils are used to date geologic strata and geologic strata are used to date fossils. This is plainly a lie. But then again I can almost understand why he would use such a blatant and easily falsifiable lie. The bible tells him he can lie about anything if it furthers the cause for Christ:

"For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" [Romans 3:7 NKJV]

At least we know why he lied so willfully and easily. But let us consider the nature of the lie and its sheer magnitude.

1. This is false first and foremost because this is not the only way things are dated. If he had taken the time to read those encyclopedia passages he cited, he would know this. I am sure he did because he had to in order to find those quotes he was looking for.

The truth is there are many ways of dating fossils and the geologic strata. Radiometric dating (and not just radio-carbon dating) all are used to date both rocks and fossils. Now here is the proof. We have roughly 10,000 years of human history where we made a non-natural mark on nature; cave-paintings, buildings, pottery, tools for hunting, etc. We can date those things using history and physical evidence. But further when we turn around and independantly date those things using science -- radiometric dating -- we come up with the same ages. So we know the methods are accurate. Thus we can date almost anything within a relative range of accuracy and trust that those ages are both real and fact. Dr Carlson never tells you this because it destroys his entire argument. He prefers to lie.

2. Dr Carlson's logic is internally flawed, he knows it and ignores that glaring flaw. His entire "circular logic" argument of the geologic strata and fossils would -- by definition -- be entirely relative. In other words, if what he were saying was true, then there would be no way at all, to put specific dates on anything in the strata or the fossils. For if the only way to date strata is by the fossils, and the only way to date fossils is by the strata they are in, then there would be no method to put a numbered age to either.

Either one or the other, or both, must somehow be able to be dated using an independant method which does provide a numbered age in order to provide an age scale for the entire geologic column and fossils. That is done by radio-dating the samples.

So when Dr Carlson says the Jurassic period was 65 million years ago, or the earth is 4.5 billion years old, he is admitting that there is another method to date things, one that is more objective than the subjective method of comparing fossils to strata to fossils.

3. When Dr Carlson is discussing the geologic column and evolution, he fails to mention one very important fact which completely invalidates his entire argument. That the reason fossils have been used to relatively date strata is that complex organisms all appear late in the column and simple organisms all appear early in the column and that has never been found to be untrue in all of the research ever done.

That fact that horses, humans, chimps dinosaurs, etc, have never been found in the earliest strata and only in the most recent strata shows that organisms grew in complexity as time passed.

4. Speaking of the geologic column, Dr Carlson indulges in some tiresome chicanery. He makes the claim that the "entire" geologic column has never been found in one place. What he fails to mention is twofold; one, that the earth is an active body, full of energy and motion, constantly churning up the surface via such methods as plate techtonics and magma discharge, and second that all the layers have been found in various places around the world, proving that they all exist and existed.

Failing to mention that makes his argument dishonest at best.

5. Finally he claims that the world is only 6,000 years old. Not only is there verifiable proof that humans have been around in modern "civilized" form for at least 10,000 years, but his only evidence to the contrary is a book. I don't even trust my science books that much to unequivacably accept them, I like to reproduce the experiments they explain, and find outside proof that their claims are correct. But this guy trusts implicitly a book written by superstitious goat herders written three thousand years ago.

Not to mention that this particular claim, that the world is only 6,000 years old runs into problems with exactly every single area of science, thus by making it, Dr Carlson is saying that all science is wrong, and nothing valid can come out of it. Quantum physics, wrong because the world is only 6,000 years old and thus radioactivity is false. Astrophysics, wrong, becuase the world is only 6,000 years old and thus all light from all stars can only be at most 6,000 years old. So that nuclear reactor and that computer and that microwave oven you have? Those are all delusions in your mind because they cannot exist because the science they are founded upon is false because the earth is really 6,000 years old.

5. Oh, and did I mention that PZ Myers also wrote about this, and picked apart his claims about Charles Lyell? It seems that Dr Carlson cannot help but tell lies and mislead and hide the obvious truth.

Who knew that the "Truth" was maintained by so many lies and deceptions? I guess that is why I prefer the truth, which is comprised of, well, the truth, facts and reality.

[Update:] P.S. At least Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham are --shall we say-- thorough enough to acknowledge that there are other methods of dating; namely radiometric dating. Their excuse turns out to be that we cannot know if radioactivity, that is the radioactive decay constants, are actually constant throughout time (e.g. here). They are and we have proof of that as well. But they use as proof the fact that science while determining another constant, the speed of light, changed the value many times meaning the actual speed of light must have changed. Of course the fact that instruments moved from a state of crudity to a state of sophistication over that same period makes no difference. Again, this is an example of just how horrid their excuses and feeble lies really are to someone who knows the truth.

HAHA Ray Comfort can be funny!

Ray is such a stitch. He has a post up, I call it the "water is wet" post. He entitled the post, "Top Ten Predicted Atheist Objections to the Below Statement:"

"Water is wet." -- Ray Comfort

My response must have come in at number 11: "so what?"

I thought about how useless and inconsequential this statement is. And looking down his list, I came to the conclusion that he is pulling off a "Seinfeld;" a statement about nothing. He seems to want to show that something so obvious can be made to be contestable by atheists if it is uttered by a young earth creationist. [And I decided to leave out the actual real science which makes this statement absurd; along the lines of heat is hot, the sky is blue, ice is cold, etc.] Because real science is totally lost on people like Ray Comfort.

Instead, I thought about making another statement and propose similar rebuttals I predict Ray and other fundie Christians would say:

"God is good" -- Jeffperado

1. "Of course God is good, he's God after all"
2. "God has to be good, for he cannot be anything else by definition"
3. "If God were bad, then he would not be worthy of worship"
4. "Other Gods can claim to be good, but only God is good"
5. "God only does good things, so he must be good"
6. "The bible tells me so, and I believe in the bible"
7. "My parents taught me about God, and they said he was good, so he must be good"
8. "I go to church every week, and all I hear is how good God is. If my church tells me this, it must be true"
9. "Anyone who says their God is better, or says there is no God is wrong, therefore God is good"
10. "I believe, and my beliefs are right"

Just like the absurdity of the "water is wet" canard, the "God is good" is a canard as well. The truth lies in the nuance; what exactly does it mean to be 'wet' or for that matter 'good'?

Just like I would tell Ray that wetness is a property of water, and not an absolute one at that.
(Consider deep freezing water into ice -- is ice wet? Yet ice is still water). But can we do the same for God and good? Is there a way to seperate them? Christians would say no, that by definition, everything God does is good, and everything good that happens comes from God. Except, of course, when God --according to the bible-- kills babies, pregnant women, and small children. Or when an atheist does a decidedly good thing.

Then it isn't "God is good" any more; it is "God has a plan". And that plan is good.

Now go back and reread Ray's post. You will immediately see that what Ray is really saying is that he is projecting his own brand of convoluted illogic and lack of facts unto atheists in hops of convincing himself and others like him that atheists are really as screwed up and misinformed as he is, and thus his belief system is as valid as the system of reality found in atheism.

But really all Ray Comfort is, is funny in a sad sort of way.

Revisiting Ray Comfort

You know it has been a long while since I have mentioned Ray Comfort. I discussed him even before he had his own blog, Comfort Food. Reading his blog one thing becomes clear; simple questions to him beg absurdly simply answers. And more importantly, well-thought-out questions do not exist and thus have no need of answers. This is obvious in the types of "questions" which get asked and answered As anyone who peruses his blog can see. Nothing tough or above the simple strawman is ever addressed, just simple-minded questions and even more simple-minded answers. This leads one to wonder if this simplemindedness is the only level on which Ray Comfort is able to operate. He after all, is the arch-architect of the infamous "banana" argument for creationism. This alone should has disqualified him from and reasoned Christian discourse. But alas, he has hung around like that pesky "common cold" virus.

I have to admit that I am thankful. For if his is the level of Christian apologetics, then reason, logic, fact and reality have a chance in overcoming Christianity. We can all thank our good friend Ray for that.

Let us take for one example of this, this recent post by our good friend Ray, The Faithiest. He opens it by posing a "question" he recieved. One look at this question and you can instantly tell that it is nothing more than an overly simple question asked in hopes of being overly simply answered. And Ray jumps at the chance of making the simple completely over-simplistic:

"Life forms change over time and given enough time they can and did change dramatically. GET OVER IT! No one is ever, ever going to go back to the idea that species were created fully developed at a specific point in time. NEVER. The details of the theory may change but not the framework. There is no faith involved. Move on. Evolution happens." Milo

I cannot say that I know the mind of Milo, but I can say that his representation here is so absurd as to be laughable. Reality is that humanity learns on a daily basis, we know more today than we did yesterday. Thus what we consider to be factual from day to day never changes, how we interpret those facts as we learn more, changes. Faith is the complete absense of fact. A Muslim has faith in their god, as does a Jew in theirs, as does a Christian in theirs. No fact is involved. Consider a man standing atop the tower of Pisa with a stone in his hand. He cannot say to his friend there, that he has faith if he lets go of the stone it will hit the ground, and his friend cannot say that he has faith it will not hit the ground. This is because they are talking about facts of reality, the real physical world. But in terms of religion, there is no reality whatsoever. It is all faith-based. How can one supernatural god based upon some holy book be better or more real than another god based upon some holy book?

Just look for example at the bible: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" [Heb 11:1 NKJV]. Since all of nature can be seen of evidence of it seen, then none of nature can be considered in terms of faith. This includes evolution. We see evolution, we see evidence of evolution in the past, we have mountains of facts not just including fossils, which are all nature and thus not faith-based to back up evolution. We have the natural laws of physics to back up dating and relational chronographies. We have chemistry and bio-chemistry, DNA, embyonosis. All these are natural and fact based; thus outside the "unseen" realm of faith.

But none of that shows up in Ray's post at all.

Here is what we do see in Ray's response:

You have said, "Life forms change over time and given enough time they can and did change dramatically." This is what you believe. Its a statement that is based on faith. You weren’t there when the life forms were created, and you didn't see them change. You don’t know how life began; you simply believe that what you have been told actually did happen. Like it or not, you are a "believer" in the theory of evolution.

How life began is not an issue of evolution at all. Evolution deals only with how life, once it occurred, changed over time. How difficult is it for Creationists to understand this very simple fact. The origin of the chemistry of life is completely different from the origins of the diversity of lifeforms once life came into existence. One is a question of speculation, the origin of life, and one is a question of understanding all the facts of life and how well we understand the process that fits all those facts together. And here I repeat this simple, nay simply simple fact that every day we learn more facts and thus have a better -- more precise -- understanding of how all present species came to be like they are today.

But look more closely at what Ray actually does say. Take this quote, "This is what you believe. Its a statement that is based on faith. You weren’t there when the life forms were created, and you didn't see them change." Could this not also be said about George Washington? Who today could have personally seen George Washington? Thus according to Ray Comfort we can only "believe" in George Washington via "faith". Furthermore, we have witnessed lifeforms change, even change into new species. So not only do we have a flat out lie about not witnessing evolution, but we have either deceit or ignorance when it comes to the value (or lack of value according to Ray) of things we have not seen but can verify in totally natural records.

This is again in stark contrast to the supernatural and unknowable ways of any god, not just God or Jesus. Since the bible was written by humans and is undeniably rooted in specifically historical events, it is also natural not supernatural. Thus even the bible itself is not proof of anything supernatural other than the supernatural desirables of its wholly natural authors.

So again we come up against this whole canard of faith applied to the provable and understandable natural realm when it is defined solely by the unseen, unknowable and supernatural realm of the gods. Even the bible tells us this.

Ray Comfort, then must either be a charlatan or wholly ignorant of both real reality and biblical reality.

And more importantly, this is just an example. His entire philosophy and blog is exactly the same.

Dishonesty and 'T'ruth vs real truth

For decades (possibly even centuries) Christians have been champions of possessing Truth -- capital T -- which clashes with truth -- little t -- the knowledge of humans and their real world around them. The story told by Christians regarding evolution and creationism is the perfect and most clear example of this. Just look at the NYT article about the "strengths and weaknesses" debate in Texas. Much has been written about this article in science realms, so I need not go into that. I merely wish to point out this dualism of truth. The line in the article which shows this most starkly is this:

"Dr. McLeroy, the board chairman, sees the debate as being between “two systems of science.”
“You've got a creationist system and a naturalist system,” he said."

That is the reality of the difference of 'T'ruth and truth. Paul wrote in Romans, "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" [Rom 3:7 NKJV]. So we see that dishonesty is part and staple of furthering Truth. This is because the Truth of God's kingdom may mean lying about the truth of this material world. This is an ingrained belief of Christianity since the days the New Testament was written. It is exactly why the reality of this world can be so easily discarded by fundamental Christians, because what is true in reality has no value in God's realm. Just look at the only source of evidence of this Truth; the bible. It was written and interpreted by humans, living in the material realm. Yet it is the only source of God's realm where Truth exists. Thus the contradiction, the only source of God's realm of truth is via a materialistic, humanistic, realm of truth. If Truth can only be learned via the material (the bible), and the material has no value when compared to the Truth of God's realm, then there can be no way to know the Truth. That is where faith steps in, in God's realm of Truth.

This contradiction means that the only thing in the material realm -- that realm which we all know and experience on a daily basis -- that can be True is the bible. All else can neither be trusted or even called true. We see this to be fact in relation to evolution and the stance of people like Dr McElroy. If this obvious contradiction were to be lived out to its fullest by believing Christians, then they should be even more reactionary than the Amish or Mennonites who reject modern technology. For all that is built upon the backs of science and materialistic fact. Yet they do not reject the reality of modern technology. That contradiction of Truth vs truth is laid bare and completely ignored.

If only Christians could step back and look at themselves; their beliefs and real world practices, then they would be ashamed. They would all move to reject literalism because of its disasterous realities and all embrace a more liberal form of Christianity. Not that I see that happening any time soon though. The blinders that keep the strictly materialistic Bible firmly ensconced in this supernatural ether of God's realm cannot be lifted by logic, reality or truth. The lie of Paul has already cemented that.

When it comes down to it, the real difference between fundamental Christians and atheists is simple, These Christians want to accept as true something which they cannot know in a materialistic sense, and atheists only accept those things which are knowable in the materialistic sense. This total lack of understanding between the two groups is founded on this basic lack of fundamental cooperation.

Christians will never take a step back and look at their beliefs from a fact-based and true perspective, and atheists will never give in to the idea that the completely unknowable (i.e. faith) has any merit whatsoever to determine what is True and what is true only in the material realm.

It becomes obvious that 'T'ruth is inherantly dishonest, in that it relies on materialism and humanity but claims to be the pure extraction of the exact opposite; the Godly realm. Paul and his 'lies for God' and the constant lying about the truth of this material world are inherant staples of the fundamental Christian psyche. There is no distinction between dishonesty about the real world and professed faith in the 'T'ruth of the bible. Anyone, even every single Christian, can know the truth of this world via our amassed knowledge, but no one, no even one single solitary Christian can know anything about the Truth of God's realm, without faith -- the simple act of merely believing it is true without any way to know it is true.

I am sure we will return to this philosophical and theological discussion again in the future.

A Problem with the "Good Person" Test

Now I wish to say upfront that I understand the ultimate purpose of this test; it is to simply show that there are no good people outside of accepting Jesus.

But we all know that this is total bunk. Even the most basic Christian who remembers even the tiniest amount of Sunday School knows this to be totally false. For that would mean that no one of the Old Testament made it into heaven, because they would have to pass this very same "good person" test, that is unpassable. Yet the Old Testament tells us of a number of Old Testament Persons who made it into heaven, some even bodily.

Thus we know the test is false and a flat out lie on its face. But have any Christians out there thought about what it means for that test to be false? I doubt it because it would mean that Christ is not necessary for entrance into heaven. And that is not what the New Testament tells us. So if those two testaments are in conflict, then which is right and what should we all believe, Christian and non-Christian alike. I will look at that question at the end of this post.

First, I would like to share with you the email I wrote to the authors of this "good person" test..

Greetings,
I just took the test, and I felt wholly unsatisfied. For I know of no one who passes, no matter their Christian leanings. All would fail regardless. Why?

Consider what you wrote:
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
There is none righteous, no not one. Romans 3:10

This is false and misleading. Just consider for a moment the Old Testament. Is Moses in Hell? Is Elijah in Hell? Is David in Hell? What about Aaron, Elisha, Lot, Noah, Solomon? Ruth? I think it harsh to call these people "righteous" "just" and "heroic" and yet tenets of hell. Don't you agree

So there must be a level of "righteousness" that gets one into heaven that a mere human can perform. This makes Jesus irrelevant. Again, I say, this evidence of the "righteousness" of many Old Testament Characters makes the redemptive power of Jesus irrelevant if one can maintain that same level of righteousness as the Old Testament Characters, unless they are not in heaven.

Then you wrote:
"Imagine you are standing in front of a judge, GUILTY of serious crime. All the evidence has been presented and there is no doubt of your guilt. Your apologies
and good works cannot erase your crimes; therefore you must be punished. The fine for your crime is $250,000 and you have no money."

But what happens if the judge is guilty of the exact same crimes as you, and all others, and guilty a hundred thousand times more than you are. If you stole a pen and the Judge stole thousands of acres of land. If you killed a person, but the
Judge killed tens of millions of people, if you raped, but the Judge raped thousands of young girls, and ordered the raped of countless thousands of more. If you blasphemed, but the Judge blasphemed many more times than you and all other humans combined. If you lied, but the Judge lied infinitely more than you. How can that judge be in any way superior and able to judge you?

Remember Paul told us that it is acceptable to lie in God's name. He wrote: "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" Romans 3:7 Lying for God is moral.

You also noted: "Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by GRACE ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: NOT of works, lest any man should boast.""
But in James 2:14 "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?" Followed by James 2:17, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead"

So even the bible lies and is misleading, and you fell for that lie. Just as Paul stated you would when he told you those of the bible would lie to further the message.

I suppose it would be easy to just say that because the New Testament happened second it should supercede the Old Testament. But that in and of itself creates a fundamental problem. God does not change nor does God's laws. Both Testaments attest to this. But if there is a fundamental change, that being that there is a way into heaven by being "righteous" enough, as the Old Testament states, then why even is there a need for the New Testament and Jesus Redemption, if everyone in the New Testament need only to live up to Old Testament standards?

Let me give you an analogy:

Suppose that you you live in an exclusive neighborhood, aimed solely at keeping out all crime. You and you family earned a spot in that neighborhood by being strictly lawful for your entire lives. This same strict standard also applies to all your neighbors. Now suppose some new owner of that subdivision comes along and says that anyone can move in, no matter what their past crimes are, if they simply accept him as their new lawgiver and they promise to abide by his laws. How would you and your neighbors feel that first of all being lawful is no longer the rule or standard, and second of all that murderers and rapists and theives are now allowed into your very own neighborhood, as long as they promise to abide by a set of new rules that didn't even exist when you moved into this neighborhood?

Yet this is the crux of the "good person" test. This is the very founding core of modern Christianity.

Evolution, Expelled, Christianity, and Hitler

Over at Pharyngula, PZ posted this:

Now here's the thing, the world is a complicated place, it always has been. Then Ben Stein comes along and claims in his mock-u-mentary that "Darwinism" led to Hitler and Nazism. But something kept digging at my brain about this statement.

I finally came to realize just what it is. The same is true for Christianity as well, but not in the murder millions sense. Ben Stein claims that the concept of Darwinism (i.e. natural selection) gives rise to the social intent (purpose) of selecting races/groups/slivers of humanity as being superior and thus all others in need of extermination. But this is a social construct, and is utilized in many ways (again I will stress without the brutal murder and war). Christianity claims exactly the same thing as is applied to Hitler and Nazism as we see so clearly in Expelled.

What I mean is this: Look at Christianity as a religion and as a social movement. Christianity proclaims that it is an outgrowth and progression of the ancient Hebrew religion and is superior to all other religions. Christians actively spread out via missionaries to spread the good news of Jesus and convert all non-Christians to Christianity. That is exactly the same argument used against Hitler, and by extension evolution. In the case of Hitler, this Darwinistic natural selection is evil and proves why evolution is bad, but in the case of Christianity, this very same Darwinistic natural selection is good.

I can only conclude that science and Darwin had it just right all along. "Darwinism" spreads good and evil without conscience. If I were coming from the perspective of a Christian, that is. In which case I would have to thank Darwin and his natural selection for giving Christianity the exact tool to spread Christianity. For without natural selection, then it would be impossible for Christians to figure out a way to propagate their message.

This at least makes as much sense as Ben Stein does.

The reality is, "Darwinism" has nothing more to do with the spread of Christianity than it does Nazism and the holocaust. For to condemn "Darwinism" for Hitler's actions is the same as to blame the spread of Christianity on "Darwinism".

I have finally figured out that the spread of Christianity is exactly like, and completely analogous to the horror of Hitler and his extermination of Jews -- If "Darwinism" is used as the tool. In one case you have a superior race exterminating its inferior enemies, and in the other you have a superior religion extermininating its inferior religions. This is Ben Stein's folly: The holocaust is just as reliant upon "Darwinism" as is Christianity. And from the standpoint of Christians, this therefore cannot be all bad....

..or maybe, just maybe, reality and the actual theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with either, and this whole argument found in Expelled is total smoke and mirrors.

Faith, Prayer and Humanity

CNN has an update on the story about the parents of a girl with diabetes who died because they decided to pray for her rather than send her to the doctor.

As always, PZ Myers has more on this tragic event.

I would point (maybe wag...) my finger at any believing Christian (I have Rhology, in particular, in mind) and ask them point blank whether they would take cold hard, fact-based, tested, secular, humanistic, agnostic science and medicine over the fantastical sky-fairy god of their very own religion when it comes to health and well-being of their children. If they say science and medicine, then I have to wonder just how much they really do believe in their magical sky daddy they call Jesus/God. If they say faith and prayer, then I have to wonder how much they really love their own children, since they could so easily be cured via human knowledge and ingenuity but are assigned certain death if faith and prayer is used.

Let us go back to the CNN article and look at a few statements of the Jesus-believing parents and friends. I really am curious as to just how out of the mainstream of Christian thought they really are:

Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness "a test of faith" and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a "spiritual attack," the criminal complaint said.

Test of faith. Sounds reasonable enough from a Christian perspective. But we are presented with a tangible proof of just why it is not. A girl -- a young daughter -- needlessly died from an easily treatable and controllable disease simpy because the parents chose to trust God over trusting humans and human knowledge. Just look at what that faith in God got the girl; death. If this does not make you feel bad then I can only say that you are hollow and rotten inside. If you have faith in God them you have to side with the parents. That makes you a horrible person as well. If you trust in faith in God, but still would take your very own child to see a doctor, then you are admitting that faith in God is fantasy, and mere shadow in the light of reality. The whole "spiritual attack" is but icing on the cake. For if you are Christian, then you have to accept evil forces at work. And denying faith or prayer in lieu of human ingenuity and humanistic healing, then you have to deny the whole dark side of your belief. And in doing so, then you cannot accept Jesus, for his act was one of fighting an evil force, and not one of making an empty gesture in the face of only one being -- God (no devil).

According to court documents, Leilani Neumann said in a written statement to police that she never considered taking the girl, who was being home-schooled, to a doctor.
"We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her. My husband Dale was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor and I said, 'The Lord's going to heal her,' and we continued to pray," she wrote.

So how did all that praying work out? One dead little girl. Look at it this way: With medical help and friends and family praying, many children are healed and live. With praying alone, all children die. What is the random variable there? Medicine and science. Those things create healing. Prayer never does.

I wish the moral to this story was that faith and prayer are useless and superstitious wastes of effort and only through human knowledge and ingenuity can people live better lives. But you and I know that this will not be the real case. For all Christians will simply say that there was not enough faith or prayer present, or that it "was not God's plan" or some other fantastical baloney. They will never get it. They will never see that religion harms, it never helps. Especially in cases where simple human intervention and reality-based knowledge would help.

I do this, I write and I stomp my feet, because if I can get get even a few Christians to realize the absurdity of their beliefs (even if they are liberal Christians) and reject that, and accept real-world and truthful knowledge, then so many of our little tragedies (like this one) could be avoided. For accepting personal responsibility for ones own actions makes those actions much more personal, over attributing them to some magical sky fairy and absolving oneself of all personal responsibility. That is why atheistic morality is now and always will be far superior to any religious-based morality; because it is solely and uniquely based in the personally responsible category. No atheist can claim they did what they did because some sky daddy wrote it down in some musty old book.

Expelled! is Ignored

The anti-science "mock"-umentary and Ben Stein comedy vehicle "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" just opened this weekend. The IMDB unofficial tally (note this is a dynamic page and a week from now the results will change) has the opening weekend take of Expelled at $3.15M. Falling just short of the children's actual comedy, "Horton Hears a Who" which amassed $3.5M.

[Update: Expelled only achieved $2.97M in the final tally. Horton managed $3.51M]

Maybe it is time for all those Christian conspiracy-theorists to just pack it up and go home if they cannot even sell their B.S. propaganda to Christians enough to surpass a bad Dr. Seuss movie.

Oh, and just what did Ben Stein's faux-documentary have to say about Christians who accept evolution (and thus destroy his entire thesis)? ...Why nothing, of course. No interview of Ken Miller at all. Certainly a gaping hole in his whole "believe in God and therefore be expelled from all science" theme. And who is Ken Miller?

Final Update: Check out this review by Alexander J. Sheffrin in the Christian Post. He says:

In an impressive opening weekend, the film debuted at No. 9 at the box office, earning a respectable $3.2 million while only appearing on 1,052 screens.

And now for some quick math.. $3.2M divided by 1,052 screens gives us $3042 per screen over the weekend. Now I am going to be kind here, lets assume just two showings per day for the three days. That means six total showings per screen. Also assume $9 per ticket (person). So divide $3042 by $9 and that that gives you a total of 338 people per screen. Divide that by six showings total per screen and that gives you a total of 57 people per showing. Now does 57 people in a theatre of lets say an average of 200 total seats sound like it could be described as "impressive"?

Curiosity

I don't care what your political leanings, your religious leanings, or any other "leanings" are; but I am curious as to what you think.

Question:

Would you rather die for what you believe in -- say your rights in this country, or would you rather live and give up those rights?

See Crooks & Liars.

In my view, I would rather be a little less safe and a lot more free (but I see religion, for example, as what it is -- oppressive in said rights). I do acknowledge that there are others who are the opposite. I just see them as wanting it if -- and only if -- the limiting of rights is as exactly as they would have them, and not someone else would like to place upon them.

Food for thought.

Atheist Statistics

I really hate to base yet another post on a YouTube video, but...


(Thanks to Dirk Diggler over at Unscrewing The Inscrutable)

Personally, I have to really think on the implications of these types of statistics. For on the one hand it shows that the more you learn about the world, and the universe we live in, the more likely you are to dump God. But on the other it shows, quite starkly, just how right the religious right is in their hatred of education and learning. Keep people stupid and they belive in God, allow them to be educated, and they begin to ignore pre-historic god figures. Facts and reality do not jive with any sort of God-belief at all.

The bible, in its entirety, is my best proof of this. I have spoken at length about the problems, errors, and outright unfactual "facts" found in the bible. I have even written a book about this subject. God kills babies, willfully, and with intent. But today God hates abortion. I guess god hates doctors taking over His role? Oh wait, doctors today heal people of illness, yet in biblical times, it took a prophet of God, or his own Son, to heal the sick... Christians Unite! No longer is abortion the only right-to-life God morality issue, going to the doctor is just as evil. Or something like that.

And of course, my thanks go out to Rhology. For he has proven beyond all doubt, that fact, proof, education, are all in the eye of the beholder. With Rhology, if it is supernatural it is real and proof in and of itself, and the pittling proof and facts I offer of this world we all know is nothing compared to his causeless god who caused the cause-needing Universe. For with logic like that, I am but a child in a world of doctorates.

I obviously, can only be defeated by a level of knowledge and fact which can possibly claim that even though the bible tells us the value of pi is 3.0, that in reality it is only an approximation because of the imprecise language of the ancient Hebrews, but on every other matter (that is not related to science or mathematics) the Hebrew text is completely and utterly true and factual and the absolute words of God (not word of God).

So we are back to fact and fantasy, education and ignorance, academic and religious. Statistics show that the more one leans to former and less the latter, the more one tends to be atheistic.

All the more reason to make sure all our children are better educated.

This is pretty cool too:


Let us close with Dolly Parton, a Tennessee establishment:

Rhology's "Scenario"

In my post "Atheist Morality" Rhology challenged me to this scenario: (Which he gave me permission to copy in its entirety, and is shown below.)

This is probably my last post before the Christ-mas holiday takes me away from the computer for a while. Merry Christ-mas!I'll celebrate by posing a slightly disgusting question for atheists to answer as they like:

Situation: You are traveling in a foreign land and go to an out-of-the-way picturesque temple. There you meet a native, there to offer religious piety. He finishes lighting
his candle and then greets you, speaking serviceable English. Edit: He introduces himself as Tkalim.He offers to tell you a little about his religion. You, being the courteous gentleman/lady you are, invite him to proceed. He tells you that he and his whole society worship 5 gods of the fish, air, earth, fire, and tree. He then tells you that part of his worship devotion is to go with all the men of his society to steal girls between the ages of 3-8 years from their families in the nearby large city, take them into the jungle, and rape them.

Once raped, the tribesmen leave the girls in the jungle as an offering to the tree god. He says he knows of no girl that has ever returned to the city to her family.

Once he finishes his story with calm voice and clear eyes, he falls silent.

I have something to say to him about this practice. What would YOU say? How would you try to explain that what he is doing is wrong? *Is* what he is doing wrong? On what basis?

Interesting.

I am sorry, I meant boring! First of all just how stable would this be as a moral imperative? Certainly the members of the society who had their girls stolen would be quite (and I say this delicately) pissed. Surely after enough time they would retaliate. This retaliation is what we commonly know as war. They would have a good reason, their girls were being raped. Now is war moral? If your self-preservation is on the line then yes. Clearly we have a situation where war is moral. But what of the other side. They were following a "moral" practice and now are fighting for their lives because of it. Is that moral? No. Because win or lose, they lose valuable resources: their men, their religious practice during the war, and much time and effort which could have been avoided.

As for the coda. How horrible is that for those on the side of morality? They say it is acceptable because none of the victims complained?? Read the Bible. It is rife with victims who never complained (most likely because they were women or children who were stoned to death); and yet died because of moral tenets that everyone today would call vicious and horrid (killing children because they were disobedient, killing virgin women because they were raped and their rapist wanted nothing to do with them, etc.)

Morality is sick when it comes from any supposed supernatural outside-of-human-experience source. Morality only becomes useful when it stands the test of time and human experience. That is precisely why things such as incest, slavery, and plural marriages are now immmoral when they used to be moral within the framework of the Bible, and things like interracial marriage and freedom are now moral when they used to be immoral.

I don't make these rules or decide morality. And it certainly isn't the Bible either. Society does, and it does so only after time and (human) experience determines it as moral. Morality is uniquely human, even in Christian and Jewish circles (which claim to use the same faux source -- God).

Oh, and as for any argument that I ignored/failed to respond to/provided no substance for, Rhology's actual argument. Take what I offer as fair and balanced. For I have never once claimed that because the bible never says anything about genetic manipulation or cloning it is ignoring or providing no substance on those specific issues. (I simply claim that the bible is a work of its times and that it predated real science -- thus has nothing to say on it at all).

Update: Rhology, I never imagined that you would consider your very own duaghters being raped a moral act, if that rape was performed in the name of some god (any god at all), whom of supposed supernatural origins, could never be contested via human experience that rape is bad. In other words, would you Rhology, allow your daughters to be raped if God ordained it, but would call it immoral if some other god ordained it, both being via supernatural origins.

A Bizarre Poker Hand and a Math Puzzle

Ed Brayton shows a YouTube video of a very unusual hand. For fun, I'll include the video as well.


My puzzle is this. Obviously -- do I even need to say that? -- we in Vegas have thousands of video poker machines. If you've never played them then this may be unfamiliar to you. But there are two methods of handing cards based on the cards held out of the five original cards. With each of those methods comes a prababilistic model one can use to establish the probabilities of a winning hand. But the really interesting mathematical question is how to determine which of the two methods is used by the poker machines. Or can it be determined?

First let me briefly describe the game (we'll limit it to straight poker, but joker poker is essentially the same problem but with one wild card added to the deck -- deuces wild is the same as straight poker). You are given five cards, anything including or better than a pair of jacks wins. You can keep any cards dealt or dump all five cards. Replacement cards are then dealt, and you win or lose based on those final five cards. Thus, at most ten cards in play from a deck of 52 (or 53 with the joker). The question is how are those ten cards handled by the machine? The two methods of dealing those cards are:

1) five cards are dealt and then five replacement cards are used based on the number of cards discarded. Thus at most ten cards are in play, and the replacement cards merely move forward in the stack to replace the disdcarded cards. For example the ten cards are numbered (unrelated to their actual value) 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. If the player keeps two cards, let's say in position 3 and 5, then cards 6,7,8, move into positions 1,2,4.

2) five cards are dealt and five replacement cards are underneath the five original cards, as if there were actually five stacks of two cards, with the second card hidden underneath the first card. Going back to our example: 1(6),2(7),3(8),4(9),5(10). If the player keeps the same cards, 3 and 5, then cards 6,7,9 are revealed.

Now in case one, it is obvous that it would be impossible for cards 9 and 10 to be revealed, but in case two it would be impossible for cards 8 and 10 to be revealed.

So herein lies the mathematical interest. Which situation would give a player (or the house) a stastical advantage? And more importantly, without knowing how the cards are dealt out, can one determine which method is used, even if no advantage is conferred by either method? Your knowns are what I sketched out above, plus the fact that no hand can be replayed to see if different cards are given out in the exact same situation.

The answer to the first question is faily obvious I would think, it is the second question that makes this puzzle interesting.

Christian Exodus: Christians Shoot Selves in Foot With Gun

I have always maintained that the most fundametal christians tend to be the least logical, knowledgeable, truthful, and intelligent people. I think this "news" post from Christian Exodus proves it.

The US Supreme Court is hearing debate about the meaning of the 2nd Amendment - specifically whether it protects a "collective" right to keep and bear arms or an "individual" right. What seems to be missed is the fact that ALL rights are individual and NONE are collective. We do not assume unto ourselves more "rights" simply by increasing our numbers. More numbers results in more "might" but not more "rights". The best treatise on this subject is The Law, by Frederick Bastiat, which can be ordered from CE's online store here: Online Store

I will ignore the sound of shooting oneself in the foot here. For if this is a country of completley individual rights, then there can in no possible way be a collective right of Christians to call this a "Christian nation" since the collective nature of this country being Christian in no way overrules this superior "individual" rights rule, and more importantly, if individual rights rule, then Christian views, morals, and majority has no "collective" right to tell "individuals" what they can do, say, believe, or practive as individual rights.

Christian Exodus has just proved beyond all doubt that this is not a Christian nation, and Christian ideals have no place being used as rules for all individuals in this great nation.

One thing this "news" article proves, there is no limit to stupidity, individual or collective.

Update: Here is the email I sent to Christian Exodus. I wonder if they will reply or not...
Recently, your president of Chrsitian Exodus wrote: "What seems to be missed is the fact that ALL rights are individual and NONE are collective. We do not assume unto ourselves more "rights" simply by increasing our numbers. More numbers results in more "might" but not more "rights". "

Now I have a problem with this. If what he wrote is true, and what he wrote, he truly beleives, then there can be no "Christian nation" and there can be no laws against abortion, stem-cell research, euthenasia, or any other anti-Christian stance because all American rights are individualistic and not collective. Thus your president has just argued that the collective Christian morality is invalid in this country, and individualistic rights and values take supreme precedence over any Christian value.

In other words by saying, and I again quote, "What seems to be missed is the fact that ALL rights are individual and NONE are collective. We do not assume unto ourselves more "rights" simply by increasing our numbers. More numbers results in more "might" but not more "rights"." that there is no Christian nation, and the entire existence and purpose of Christian Exodus is a fraud, because even by moving to South Carolina, if there is even just one non-Christian resident they have each and every single identical right as the Christian Exodus Christians and have every right to live their lives as they see fit.

With this one statement by Christian Exodus, the entire premise of christian conservatism has been completely unfounded and without any merit at all.

Every single liberal, pro-choicer, gay and pro-seperation of church and stater thanks you for finally coming around to agree with them. You have just admitted that they are right and you are wrong.

And you did this all for guns. May you and Jesus enjoy your guns while liberals enjoy the country you just handed them.

Thank you,
--jeff-perado

Rapture Ready pt II -- Heathen Rapture Debunked

In my last post, I identified a two part series of posts by Wilfred Hahn over at Rapture Ready. I will focus on part II in this post. We have already seen how he ignores fact and reality to twist current world events into "proof" that rapture is imminent. Only he showed that in reality it is nothing more than a self-generated series of events that have no relation to anything supernatural -- i.e. God. In spite of this plain and simple fact, he proceded to expound on his thesis that somehow, someway, nonChristians can see these events and recognize that the coming of Jesus is indeed a certainty in short order. In his opening paragraphs of part II he writes:

Therefore, the simple question we pose is this: If Christians, who supposedly possess the Bible and therefore are without excuse to hear what God says and means, would at least non-Christians have a legitimate excuse for their blindness? The Bible answers this question clearly in the negative. Unbelieving humanity will have no excuse.
While Christians also “have the word of the prophets made more certain” (2 Peter 1:19) the entire rest of the world still remains without excuse. This indictment is even more valid today. Why? The first verified appearance of the prophesied Christ has already occurred. If He “[…] had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.“ (John 15:22) Moreover, God “has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)

Any time a fundamentalist Christian uses a Bible quote in their argument, I know that I can easily defeat their argument. For there is not one single quote in the entire Bible that proves anything at all. even the moralistic quotes only show that the Bible writers were aware of moral tenets that others had also learned through non-God-revalatory methods (trial and error). But lets look at this passage from Wilfred.

The first verified appearance of the prophesied Christ has already occurred. If He “[…] had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.“ (John 15:22)
Well then, wouldn't we all be better off if we had never heard anything of God, Jesus or his message, because then we would be free of all guilt! But we know that is false. Even the Bible denies this. For look at the very first book of the Bible. The story of Noah should be enough to prove this false. Innocents who had never heard of God were all summarily killed off, even animals. So this is a lie. It is certainly not a good start to convince non-Christians of the accuracy and supremacy of the Bible. and if this blatant falsehood is protrayed as proof of Jesus, then there is no reason to believe at all. (or maybe telling lies is how proof is given; See Paul in his epistles to the Romans, "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" [Romans 3:7 NKJV] )

Moreover, God “has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)
Excuse me, but no proof of anything is not the same as proof of something. Prove that Jesus was raised from the dead first. That is a pretty extraordinary claim, and somebody merely saying it happened is not enough. If it were, then all Christians should be Mormons, since the claim of Joseph Smith should be enough proof that it really happened (The visit by the angel Moroni). Besides we have already seen that the founding Christians, like Paul, were willing to lie to further their evangelical goals, so how can we take a statement by another "Paul" as truth, if it is established that they lie?

So let us continue and examine just what the next five end-times signs Wilfred has lined up to prove to us heathens that the rapture is real.

6. World Energy Supplies

At first you may wonder just what our world energy supplies has to do with rapture and the Bible.. That is an easy one to answer; nothing at all. But, as I am sure you could have guessed by now, the obvious is not what Wilfred wants to discuss:

In recent times, energy prices have been soaring. What could this have to do with the endtimes? It certainly speaks of an eventual end at least of one type — the end of the Oil Age. Our secular observer of this development — whether an energy expert or geopolitical strategist — would agree that oil assuredly will run out some day based upon present-day trends. Moreover, they will also surmise that this will have a destabilizing effect upon the world. But, from the evidence, could they also conclude something more apocalyptic even without reading the Bible?

The answer to his question is: No. Of course everyone agrees that oil will run out. It is a finite quantity after all. But science and almost everyone who is not an insane conservative also knows that new alternatives to oil are possible and should be researched. Science wants to solve the Oil problem -- the energy problem -- by finding new sources of energy, but that requires money. Liberals and heathens want to give them this money, conservatives want to invest in finding new places to drill for oil. ANWR anyone? So no, there is no evidence of "something apocalyptic" coming in terms of energy except that Cheney and Republicans do not want to change from oil. So the problem is the stubbornness of conservatives, not the supply of energy. So, again, conservatives cause the problem and then these end-of-the-world religious nutjobs claim this means something that it does not. What they fail to realize isthat they are only setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Consider these facts: Roughly three-quarters of world oil reserves are found in countries that are either predominantly Islamic or members of the 57-country member Organization of the Islamic Conference. Muslim nations have 3.4 times as much oil per person than the world average and almost 7.7 times as much as major Christian nations — what I call the Top-10-X countries

So what? Oil is found in a region that has also traditionally been Islamic. Let's see what Wilfred says:

These facts and many improbable others relating to the world’s hydrocarbon situation today, beg incredulity and statistical probabilities. Observing all of these improbable facts (For a full list of more than 20, please see the article series in Midnight Call, Final Combustion: Oil, Islam and the Christian West — April to July 2006), a geopolitical analyst today would be alerted to a cosmic time plan that is indeed headed for a flash point.

Improbable? How is it improbable that a valuable resource winds up being discovered in a region that nothing else at all to offer -- thus making that region poor and backward. I would counter with the example of diamonds in South Africa. That region contains many resources other than diamonds, and yet it is still poor. The injection of diamond wealth still did not affect the overall population. And their predominant religion? Christianity. So Wilfred is just chasing a logical fallacy here, trying to equivocate two unrelated facts into one cause and effect.

And that "cosmic time plan"? Well it seems to be that nothing here on earth in terms of resources is infinite and will run out. It is up to humans to either conserve that resource or find alternatives to it when it runs out. Wilfred is an idiot.

7. Populations and Pensions

Can I just skip this with merely the observation that Wilfred is an idiot? No? Ok. I guess it is true that ad hominins do not suffice as logical argument. So the world's population is growing. I can only reiterate that all the world's resources are limited, not just oil. Food and land are limited as well. But increasing the world's population is solely within the religious doctrine of conservative Christianity. Abortion and contraception are bad things to them. They are the ones pushing for a larger population. The problem is of their making. But guess who has the solutions? That's right, the non-Christian heathens, the liberals, and science.

But the obvoius is not where Wilfred goes:

What kind of crisis is expected? Not a population explosion as has been feared in recent decades, but rather an implosion. Where it once was feared that the world would soon be overburdened by too many people, world population growth has since slowed dramatically from the peak rates of the 1960s. Demographic experts are already predicting that the world’s population may actually decline 25 to 50 years from now. Crucially, world population trends have moved from one extreme to another in less than one century — a relatively short span on the human timeline.

What?? I don't know what dope this guy is smoking but I want some. We have added almost a billion people since 2000. And what experts are predicting a decline? All I can find is that there are some who think that we have already overtaxed our resources and thus we cannot sustain our current population. But that is an unproven hypothesis. Other --equally as valid -- experts say that the earth can sustain a human population of 10 billion if our resources are properly managed. The problem with their estimate is that it requires liberal leaders willing to exploit new ideas and new resources instead of conservatives who want the same ol' same ol'.

As it stands today, all our problems are fixable, but only if a new, progressive, leadership is in place to push for it. The environment will not survive if tired old conservative ideals are continued. The oceans, our energy, our farmland all will collapse unless new ideas are used. So the conservatives that Christians push to lead us are the source of the problem facing us all as a population. This means Christianity is the problem, not the actual sustainability of our planet. (I realize I am oversimplifying here, it is religion in general, in other regions of the world the religion for the same attitudes is different, but the general attitudes proffered by religion is the same no matter what the religion or where it is.)

8. Geopolitics and Human Conflict

Ah yes, the war and complete nuclear annhilihation argument. We certainly have that power now in this point of human history. It would also be nice if we had cooler heads prevailing when it comes to war. But as always it is the ultra-conservatives who push for war. Liberals always are on the side of peace. Haven't we had this argument now here in the U.S. since 2003 when Bush and his hawks invaded Iraq? I can only guess that Wilfred was hibernating in his religious cavern during this time.

To some, it appears certain that it will be “religious fundamentalism” that brings the world to this state. Or, it could simply be the warlike characteristic of man in an age of advanced weaponry and geopolitics that must lead to such an outcome. Recently, comments about a possible World War III have been popularized in relation to Iran’s purported nuclear build-up. World wars are a modern invention, the first two of which have only occurred in the last 100 years. Whatever the case or the cause for a WW III, the secular analyst must conclude that it could soon hold dire implications for the world.

Well he has me there. I certainly think it will be religious extremism that ends us as a race. Be that religion Christianity or Islam it does not matter. Religion, as a whole, is the most likely source of our demise. That means religion is the evil among us. So how is this an argument for believing that religion is our savior?

Oh, and for what its worth, Wilfred is completely ignorant of actual world history. There have been a number of world wars before WWI and WWII. They just weren't labeled "world war". The Romans, the Huns, they were warring parties that engulfed the entire known world (at theor respective times) in war. Technology changed but that is about all.

9. Environmental Concerns

Haven't we already covered this many times? Does Wilfred not realize that these things are all intimately connected? Oh, that's right the "environment" to the right means nothing more than "glabal warming."

Is the earth wearing out? Despite the fact that there is a contested debate about global warming and various other environmental issues today, the Bible says that the world will run down. “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies.” (Isaiah 51:6) No matter that globalists might want to use such issues as global warming to further their humanist agenda, it is factual that the world is being indelibly changed in our day. Pollution has had an indisputable impact in many ways. Forests are disappearing at a rate that is not sustainable. Fish stocks in the world’s oceans are being gradually depleted. There are a large number of similar developments that are observable in the world, as the wearing out of a garment. Indeed, some effects can be reversed. But all the same, the logical analyst
would still be faced with this question: How long can such trends continue before deeper crises impact the world?

Whoa! What else if left for me to say. I could write something very similar to this to prove Wilfred wrong. "Humanist agenda." Yeah, that is the agenda where we humans want to protect and preserve our world and our environment so that it endures well beyond our own meager lifetimes. It is the religionist agenda that selfishly abuses every single resource we have with no thought for tomorrow or much less a century from now. It is the religionist agenda that craves war and conflict. It is the religionist agenda that sucks up all the wealth from every other sector of humanity. And in answer to Wilfred's question, those trends can only last until religion as a whole is dropped from the human collective. Then things can begin to improve. The end-times that Wilfred envisions is one solely and wholly created by religion. "Humanism" is the only rational and reasonable solution.
10. Technology Signs
One would expect that this would be a diatribe railing against all modern technology which has caused as much harm as good. But you would be wrong. In fact Wilfred goes in the exact opposite direction. His claim is that all our modern technology should be seen as showing even more proof that God created everything. How this fits in with his main thesis -- that these are the top ten things a heathen would recognize as being signs of the end-times is beyond me. This seems to prove the exact opposite..

But there is a paradox in all this. Consider that two thousand years ago Apostle Paul could write this: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
If Paul at that time — pre-technology and pre-modern-science — could deduce that God must exist based upon knowledge about the physical universe known then, why not more so today? That should be the logical conclusion. Yet, modern man has taken the opposite posture. He chooses to worship mankind itself rather that the original Creator of all this know-how in the first place.

I think that today's known human knowledge shows the exact opposite of what he claims. The size and nature of the universe is the exact opposite of what the bible teaches. The age of the universe contradicts what the bible claims. And these are simply facts, we are not even considering the theories which arise from these facts.

Oh and just what knowledge of the universe did Paul possess? That the sun revolved around the earth, that the earth was flat, that the stars could fall to the earth, that demons caused disease and prayer could cure said disease. There is no knowledge at all in that which could be said to be useful in understanding the universe, or even God, for it was all wrong. If the knowledge used at that time to create a god was wrong then there could have been no god at all, if the knowledge we have today shows there is no god then this is not somehow tristed proof that there really is a god, as Wilfred claims.

From there he has a few closing comments. Here is one:

Christians have even less excuse. There are 2500-year old Bible prophecies that can only take place in an advanced technological age such as today. For example, the statement about the two witness that “for three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial” (Revelation 11:9) has obvious implications. This could only occur as of this last half-century — the era of communications satellites. What nation, language or kindred people’s today would not have access to the internet or television over a 3 and ½ day period?

Could there possibly be any more of a ridiculuous statement? The inclusion of three and a half days proves that the Bible writers knew of satellites and the internet? How absurd is that? I guess the fact that the known world at that time was all contained within a small area, and the other areas, Africa and Asia were considered off-limits and not-essential. (consider this statement regarding Paul: "Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia." Here is the quote in context: Acts 16:5-7 [New King James Version]. ) Ignoring huge chunks of the world certainly makes it a smaller place don't you think?

But even more importantly, look at that passage again. What does it have to do at all with all tribes knowing about all other tribes at all? What does it saying about knowing anything at all about everything going on in the world at all? It takes a warped mind to read the internet and satellite communication into that passage.

But I have to say this, and I cannot stress this strongly enough. I have to thank our good friend Wilfred. For he has proven to me that without a doubt Christian thought and the foundations of current Christian thought are fully without any merit or validity at all. Wilfred has done more to strengthen my disbelief than all the atheist writers I have read, combined.

Atheist Morality

A while back I had an email conversation with a commenter (ok, it was Rhology) here who refused to accept that it was possible that a person who lacked any god-belief could be a moral person. I thought I had answered his questions completely in these posts I had written. (and later in this post.) He had a specific question posed:

Resolved: Any system of morality within an atheistic worldview can be based on nothing more than personal or at most societal preference for its value judgments.

Now when I had written in my posts that all morality actually has its root in society, and that morals which help any given society survive and thrive were considered useful and therefore kept, but those which were destructive either ultimately killed off the society, or those morals were discarded before the society died off. Virgin offerings to gods, cannibalism, incest are all things which had been practiced in the past and because they made the society as a whole unstable, they were subsequently considered "bad" moral guides. In that if they were continued to be practiced, the society would suffer and die off. Then those "bad" moral guides later became immoral.

In the same way "good" moral acts became morality. Such as not murdering, not stealing, etc.

But what about intermediate moral acts? For example having many wives, concubines. Those moral acts of millennia (or even centuries) ago are today now immoral. But just how much impact on society did those acts ever really have? Sure many other immoral acts occurred as a result (murder, for example), but their impact on society was not significant. For those civilizations continued to grow and thrive. It was only later when those intermediate moral acts became burdonsome in some way -- maybe financially, that they became, over time, immoral acts.

Even in today's society we have brand new issues which can go either way, they can be moral or immoral. Stem cell research, abortion, medical technology keeping a body alive long after the mind dies (Terri Schiavo), assisted suicide, same sex marriage. All these issues hang in the balance today.

So now we have a historical perspective with which to judge morality, specifically the morality of these types of issues. Let us take probably the easiest example, same-sex marriage. What is there that makes it appear to be immoral? Nothing. In no way does a man marrying another man harm anyone. It does not harm the children of that marriage in any way. It does not harm the marriages of the couples who live next door to that married couple, and it does not harm their children either. So if there is no harm caused to anyone, then how can it be construed at all to be immoral? If morality is defined to be that which strengthens society, then it is completely moral. If it neither harms nor hurts society, then it is intermediately moral, but still moral based on its effects on society. If it is immoral, then it harms society.

Marriage has changed drastically throughout history, we all know that is a fact. Plural marriage and concubines have been very common in history and have been accepted as moral. But that attitude has changed many times through history to where it is today, no multitudes of wives and the acceptance of concubines, just one woman and one man. But that is not the only way marraige has changed. Consider how just a few decades ago, even the one man-one woman structure had its limits as well. Both had to be of the same race, both white or both black. In many southern states (I refer you to Virginia v. Loving) there were laws against interracial marriage. This was only decades ago. Then the moral concept of marriage changed once again to allow for that new addition to the family of marriages -- interracial marraiges were now moral. So why can't the definition of marraige change once again? Why cannot men marry men and women marry women?

What is at the core of marriage after all? What makes marriage moral? Well love is the most obvious thing. But is it really the foundation of marriage after all? I think not, because even today there are many marriages that are "arranged" that is the parents of the couple decide that they should be united in marraige and the couple has no input in that decision -- they are essentially forced to marry. The foundation of marriage must be more basic than that. It must deal with providing a nuclear unit within a society that society can trust will act for its own best interests without intervention from the society. A family then is a marriage and offspring. The family acts as its own micro-society. Thus many of the duties and responsibilities of that larger society are offloaded onto the family and the marriage at its center. Thus the structure and scope of the marriage is irrelevant to its morality as long as it fulfills that duty and obligation: take responsibility of the offspring and the family unit from society and place it within the confines of the marriage. All marriages throughout history meet this requirement. MArriage types that do not are therefore immoral (i.e. the infamous Rick Santorum man-boxturtle marriage comment). So a same sex marriage would only be considered to be moral in this framework.

Now I am ready to respond to the thesis presented me and how I would respond. I think that all morality, no matter what its current source, is at its very core based on the framework I have just sketched out; that it is always, and always has been, based only on what works for society. Even in the most religious of mindsets, it has always only come down to society. The bible, and its moral code is the perfect example. No matter how a Christian wants to explain it, the fact is that the bible was the result of cultural moral ideals and was written as such, that a god was tacked onto it is not relevant. That biblical society in those biblical times found moral guides which worked for them and they encoded those morals in the bible. So even if one wanted to claim that all morality can only come from God, all their evidence is societal -- i.e. the biblical society surrounding the times of the bible. It is still society that determines what is moral and the way they do that is by sticking with what works and changing what does not. Clearly murder does not work, so it is immoral. But marriage works and it works in many different incarnations, so it is moral.

Therefore the real thesis in the original statement: "Resolved: Any system of morality within an atheistic worldview can be based on nothing more than personal or at most societal preference for its value judgments." is that atheism has nothing to do at all with morality. Atheism is simply a lack of god-belief (it is not a religion). But if lack of god-belief and God belief are not the actual root of morality then the thesis statement is a moot question. Atheism has no more to do with morality than does religion.

Now all of you must be stratching your heads at this point and saying to yourselves, "Hey wait a minute, both atheism and religion impact and influence what is considered morality." Yes that is true. They both do influence or impact morality. They can both even change morality. But the catch is that if either one changes morals in such a way that those morals now harm society, the morals must either therefore be altered again to protect society or the society dies. Which brings us full circle to the incontravertable fact that morals are the product of a healthy society, and not the other way around; a healthy society is the product of morals.

Thus my thesis is this: Both atheism and religion can influence morals in one direction or another; but society, by its long term health and stability, alone determines whether those moral changes are good or bad. Society is the key to morality, not religion or atheism.

Please note: In this essay I have used the words "good", "bad", good, and bad. I would attempt here to define them quickly and easily, but I do not think that is possible. Religion has a specific way of viewing "good" and "bad" through the lense of some magical sky daddy handing down what is good and bad. Ironically enough, for the most part they happen to coincide with the more common definitions of good and bad. I think theists getting them mixed up with holy and evil is the only real departure between the definitions. but that is another topic altogether.

Postscript: Maybe you noticed, but if you did not, this post had nothing to at all with the morality of an atheist. But I hope that it was understood that morality has nothing at all to do with religion or the lack thereof. I concede that both theists and atheists often attempt to change moral standards, but the standards themselves are neither based in a belief in a god or a lack of belief in a god.

New Religion Survey Out

The AP, via CNN, has an article out about a new survey of religious attitudes in the US. The survey was quite large for this type -- 35,000 Americans were interviewed. The main point:

While much of the study confirms earlier findings -- mainline Protestant churches are in decline, non-denominational churches are gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing -- it also provides a deeper look behind those trends, and of smaller religious groups.

Some of the interesting numbers:

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78 percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping.
More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.
One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious institution.
[...]
The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall population -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular," and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them.
Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.
Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant.

Obviously there is a lot of meat in this survey, and the story itself is rather dry, so here is my rather humble opinion.

First off, I really have to wonder just how many people are completely honest in a survey like this, and what is the methodology to check that... I mean only one in 25 Americans is an atheist? Whereas, the number of self-identified Christians certainly seems about right -- it is in line with most all previous surveys indicating about 80% of Americans are Christian. Secondly, the battle for the minds of those learning about their place in the world and universe, are turning away from religion, calling themselves unaffiliated with religion.

But my main thought on all this is rather simple. The numbers presented here does bode well for the future of atheism/agnosticism. The reason is that if more and more Americans are switching their religious affiliations within Christianity, and/or becoming one of those "nothing at all" people, then eventually religion will recede. This must necessarily happen because as people switch affiliations, things they once believed or were taught will then become "wrong" in the new religious doctrine. And as those people begin to wonder why they will realize that the source of all that confusion is the only source for their religion, the bible. And if the bible is such a muddled mess, maybe it could just be wrong.

And if it could be wrong, then those people would be much more likely to listen to the rationale behind atheism/agnosticism.

Update: Rob Boston has a different and interesting take on this survey. His background is roughly similar to mine -- Catholic family, siblings change religions -- and I think adds another dimension to why I wrote what I did in this post, and why I write what I do on this blog.

Christian Morals Put into action -- Finally

We have discussed the morality found in the bible -- specifically the New Testament -- many times here. When a person actually reads the New Testament specifically for the reason of learning the moral tenets of Christianity; many are found which are today cast aside by even fundamentalist Christians.

However, today we have one example of a group of Christians who actually adhere to one New Testament moral largely ignored by all others. Saint Mary's Academy in Kansas apparently read the epistles of Paul and decided to live by its dictates.

Kansas activities officials are investigating a religious school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.
The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.
The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

The biblical reason for this is:

And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be
in silence. [1 Timothy 2:12 NKJV]

Here we clearly have a case where the morality espoused in the bible today is now considered immoral by all rational and moral people. The irony, it burns...

This only one small example of where the supposed perfect morality of the bible is actually exactly the opposite of the actual morals of civilization.

As a side issue, the group that is in charge of this school, the Society of St. Pius X, has been excommunicated from the Catholic church. The apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II is here. Reading this letter shows just how screwed up the entire Christian Church (not just Catholics) truly are. (But this is another topic for another time.)

God Delusion Index

I saw this on PZ Myers' blog and thought it would be fun to show here... I should point out that this test is not aimed at any one religion, rather only the degree and type of belief in a god.


You probably already guessed that my score was a big fat zero.

Interesting Bible Trivia

Here is a quick quiz for everyone: What is the one Commandment (out of the 'traditional' Ten Commentments) That Jesus Christ Himself did not break? Please consider the four gospels and the Acts in your answer.

If you guessed "graven image" then you are correct. Jesus lied, murdered, coveted, dishonored his parents, blasphemed, failed to keep holy the Sabbath, stole, held up other gods besides God, and committed adultery through lust.

So go check this post out by Ed Brayton. 'Relative' and 'Absolute'? I think someone needs to go to someone more logical than Christianity to define those terms.

I mean if both eating shellfish (like lobster, crab and shrimp) and homosexuality were both 'abominations' to God in Leviticus, but suddenly in the time of Jesus, eating anything was now acceptable but being gay was still wrong proves that 'relative' is in the eye of the religious beholder... as is slavery and a black man marrying a white woman.

I guess killing falls in the same category: It is morally acceptable to kill ala war and the death penalty, but wrong to kill otherwise is absolute, but killing due to only justifiable war, and no death penalty is relative. Who would have guessed?

Discuss the absurdities.

[Update: In comments, Rhology challenged me on my claim that Jesus violated 9 of the 10 Commandments. He wanted me to cite references. So the following addition to this post is my response to that request.]

Rhology, you are correct, I should have given references to all this, but I was feeling lazy and figured it was all known and simply accepted. I had been explained all this when I grew up in private Christian schools. It is all in the gospels clear to see, and required explanation. Of course the reasons given then make no sense to me now because I am older and more rational. In fact the only broken commandment that is not explicitly stated as such is the lust/adultery and that dealt with Jesus and Mary Magdaline. (This was well before Da Vinci Code, Last Temptation of Christ and even Holy Blood/Holy Grail). So let's look at them one at a time and I will mention the specific Gospel verses which show Jesus breaking the given rule.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
Jesus claimed that he was God as a man. But Jewish law (i.e. the Old Testament) said there was only one God, Yahweh; and Jesus was not claiming to be Yahweh, but rather another version or entity of him. See John 5:24-26
Jews at that time believed that there would be a messiah, but they did not believe it would be God Himself in human form, and they certainly did not believe in any such notion as a "trinity" They believed in One God, not Three Gods in One.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth
Jesus did once stoop to write in the dirt, using symbols known to no one. If they were the "writing" of heavenly bodies, then that could be considered graven images, but since it also could have been doodles in the dirt, then it cannot be considered a violation. Jesus is free and clear on this commandment. Anyone else, however who has a picture of Jesus, or of angels, or devils, or fish or whales or sharks is currently breaking this commandment willfully. See: John 8:5-7

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain
Jesus was crucified for blasphemy. I thought this would be completely self-evident. A man calling himself God is blasphemy. And Remember Jesus' last words upon the Cross:"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" See Matthew 27:46
Does that sound like a person talking to himself? At best, Christianity can claim this should be in the context of the "trinity" but no such concept was ever spelled out in the Old Testament. Only One God. So blasphemy it is.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
This is another one that I thought would be blatantly obvious. It is a story told in all three synoptic Gospels. See It here in Mark 2:23-28.
Note the implications of blasphemy here as well.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee
Again, this is another famous story out of the gospels mentioned in the synoptics. Jesus comes across his family; mother and brothers and sisters. He shuns them (rebukes is a better word) Telling your own mother to 'shove off' is anything but honoring her. See: Matthew 12:46-50
Also see this tale of Jesus rebuking his mother. It is the famous story of turning water into wine in John 2:1-4
Then check out his speech about family: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" See Luke 14:26
Does this sound at all like "honoring your mother and father"?

6. Thou shalt not kill
Another really obvious one here. Jesus died on the cross. He had the power to save himself. He chose to die instead. That is known as suicide. And suicide is killing. I leave it to you to find the appropriate references here.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
As I said before this is the only murky one here. There are a number of heretical sources which reference Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, or just sleeping with her. But what I really find interesting are the not-so-veiled references to Jesus' homosexual activities. Only in the Gospel of John do you find references to a disciple, "the one whom Jesus loved". Now how creepy is that? You would think, that as his disciples, he loved them all. And furthermore, as a godhead, he would love all humanity -- equally. Yet there are these specific references to a specific person that he loved in a specific way. And that can only mean in a carnal sense -- sex. (Oh, and it was not Peter, either). See: John 13:23, John 19:26, John 20:2 -- this one is particularly creepy, John 21:7, and John 21:20

8. Thou shalt not steal
Jesus stole an ass. Stealing is stealing. Again this is another famous story. See: Matthew 21:1-3

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
Again, very well known. How many times in the gospels did Jesus refuse to tell the truth to the public, but said it in private to his disciples? He even went so far as to "shut up" some pesky demons who wanted to tell the truth to the people. Lying is lying no matter how its done. See for one example:
John 8:14 "Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true"
and John 5:31 "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true"

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's
Clearly Jesus never coveted any material things (except possibly Mary Magdalene), but he did covet one thing and that is the one thing he knew he couldn't keep; his life. Jesus pleaded with his Father that the crucifixion would "pass him by." Now considering everything that was at stake, according to the gospels, that was probably the most selfish act ever in the entire bible. "He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me" Matthew 26:39
And, "Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.”" Matthew 26:42
That is the biggie, but I can also present here as evidence the desire to steal that donkey that Jesus stole as coveting as well, but that really is not as grievous a sin as this one. Desiring another's donkey is nowhere near as selfish as desiring one's own life over that of all of humanity's souls. Now I understand that this also points out the absurd flaw inherent in this commandment; that desiring something is not really bad at all, especially if you don't follow through with that desire, but it is still listed as a sin against God greater than rape (which is not adultery) and abortion (which is not killing) or homosexuality or stem cell research. Oh, and what else is "coveting"? Today coveting is called "Keeping up with the Joneses". In other words, Capitalism. That is correct, The American Way, is anti-Tenth-Commandment.

Sometimes I really am saddened that I am so far ahead in biblical knowledge than those who profess to believe in the bible. I honestly thought all this was common knowledge..